Energy and water are mutually dependent resources that are critical for the development and economic security of the United States as well as in many military operations. Specifically, energy production requires large volumes of water and conversely, water treatment, and distribution requires large amounts of energy. The interdependency between water and energy is often referred to as the water/energy nexus. For example, in generating nearly 90% of the electricity in the U.S., thermal power plants are only 30-40% energy-efficient and lose roughly 90% of the unused steam energy produced as waste heat via cooling towers. This lost energy, known as waste heat, is confined to not only thermal power plants, but virtually all production plants. Most (˜60%) unrecovered industrial waste heat is considered low grade (i.e., T<200° C.). This means that it is uneconomical to recover the energy using current state-of-the-art heat recovery technologies, so it is lost to the environment.
Many water purification systems use RO membrane technology. RO membrane technology can remove a wide variety of contaminants and significantly reduce dissolved solids (i.e., salts) in a single treatment step. However they require regular maintenance that consume energy.
A water treatment process with the potential to be either self-sustaining or even a net energy producer would be a game-changing technology, with potential applications across virtually all industries. There is a need in the art for a way to purify water while being energy neutral or providing a net energy surplus.